Radio Frequency Identification (“RFID”) is a method of uniquely identifying items using radio frequency waves between a tiny tag attached to an item and a tag reading device. As a very cost effective solution, RFID technology is used today in many applications, including security and access control, transportation and supply chain tracking. It is a technology that works well for assigning a unique identifier, and any associated relevant data to individual tagged items for tracking and counting purposes. RFID systems typically consist of two major components: readers and tags. The reader sends and receives Radio Frequency (“RF”) data to and from the tag via small antennas. The tag is actually a microchip that stores data connected to an antenna to communicate with the reader. There are two major categories of RFID tags: battery powered active RFID Tags and passive RFID Tags. Unlike battery powered tags, passive RFID Tags use mutual electromagnetic coupling as the source of energy to communicate with the reader. Current passive RFID tag technologies can provide high data storage capacities in very small packages—enough capacity to include the required identification data within the chip yet small enough to be attached to a variety of minute objects including jewelry pieces and small industrial objects.
In order to meet a growing variety of application needs, RFID systems have been developed for different radio frequency bands: low frequency (125/134 KHz) used mostly for access control and asset tracking; mid-frequency (13.56 MHz) used for medium data rate and read ranges; and high-frequency (850-950 MHz and 2.4-2.5 GHz), which typically features high data transmission speeds and small label footprint and antenna suitable for small items. High frequency RFIDs are prone to electromagnetic shielding and reflection issues in the vicinity of metal structures. In order to use RFID chips on precious metal pieces, this issue has to be addressed. There are technical challenges of embedding such small RFID tags, which includes the generation of secondary disruptive electromagnetic fields due to the presence of Eddy currents in the surrounding metallic area.
Despite the wide range of RFID applications, this technology is not currently being used for permanent authentication and identification tags for jewelry items. Not very much technological change has happened in the jewelry stores industry in the last few decades. So far, the technological advancements in this retail sector include the introduction of electronic data interchange (“EDI”) and the ongoing shift to internet sales. With regard to identification and authentication technologies, in spite of the huge costs to guard against unauthorized reproductions, there is no technology that can be considered as the standard in the industry. Authentication and Identification (“A&I”) products and services have found new applications and revolutionized old ones in many fields. However, due to technical and business reasons, they have not yet penetrated the jewelry industry, despite a global market of over $200 billion annually, plus the pent-up demand for reliable, worry-free jewelry acquisition, ownership and disposal experience. The proposed technology will be specifically attractive for consumers interested in jewelry with no prior ownership history and to high net-worth consumers interested in A&I services for their jewelry portfolio for insurance, appraisal, estate management and other reasons. As in the case of blood diamonds, consumers are concerned about the source and origin of the material used in a piece of jewelry and its authentication. For example, a gold ring may be made from gold melted down from unethical sources, or sources with an undesirable history (e.g. from the gold teeth of ancient pirates, prisoners of war or victims of body part/metals harvesting). Similar to the case of the blood diamonds, consumers are willing to pay a premium price for a new and authenticated piece of jewelry manufactured using ‘virgin’ gold ethically extracted directly from a gold mine with no prior owners. A related market need is the identification and authentication of an existing jewelry portfolio of a consumer. This is of particular interest for high net-worth consumers who may own a large collection of jewelry as well.
There are technical difficulties of having efficient and unique identification and authentication method using RFID technology for precious metal objects such as jewelry pieces. These difficulties are due to electromagnetic interaction of the on-chip antenna on the RFID tag and surrounding metallic surface in the cavity housing the tag. Moreover, the cavity has to be as small as possible not to alter the artistic look of the jewelry piece. As a result, there is high interest at industrial and end consumer scales in overcoming these difficulties.
There are several viable technology approaches available, from hallmark stamps, to barcode/QR codes, to RFID tags as parts of a modern database and e-commerce system. These approaches differ in readiness, cost and ease of implementation, effectiveness, and ability to set up barriers to competition. However, as described in detail, RFID is the optimal ready-for-deployment technology choice for such applications. This opportunity did not exist earlier and its recent commercial maturity and low cost makes the technology highly market ready. The application of RFID tags (when appropriately packaged and embedded in the precious metallic objects as previously discussed) effectively attaches the unique tag of the RFID to the item. The unique tag cannot be copied or duplicated and no two tags will be the same. The unique tag can be read by the RFID reader and its tag identifier cross referenced by the system to a database which may contain information such as owner, creation date and history, authenticity of metal, and any other data fields determined useful.
It is, therefore, desirable to provide a system and method comprising RFID technology for identifying and authenticating metallic objects and jewelry pieces that overcome the shortcomings of the prior art.